Contribution of Greece to the Victory of the Allies During Ww Ii
CONTRIBUTION OF GREECE TO THE VICTORY OF THE ALLIES DURING WW II Lt Colonel of Engineering Panayiotis Spyropoulos Historian of the History Directorate of Hellenic Army General Staff The peninsula of Greece has, since antiquity, been a point of confrontation be- tween East and West, as it constitutes an area of utmost strategic value, situated on the flanks of the main axis of operations in East-West direction and vice-versa. Who- ever occupies Greece can effortlessly with his forces harass the flanks or even the rear of troops operating along the aforementioned axis, control the sea line of com- munication from Gibraltar to Suez, and block from the west the sea route from the Black Sea to Propontis (Marmara) Sea, the Hellespont (Straits), the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The geo-strategic value of Greece has been dramatically enhanced during the XXth century, due to the rapid technological development of war equipment (as per the quote of sir Halford Mackinder on the «Heartland»). During the 2nd World War, Italy launched the attack against Greece, without informing its ally, Germany. Berlin was enraged by the Italian action and considered it «totally incoherent» and mistimed, because it was initiated just before wintertime, a season unsuitable for mountain operations, as well as just before the elections in the (still neutral) USA, providing Roosevelt with even more convincing arguments for go- ing to war. Moreover, it criticised the Italians refraining from any seaborne operation, a fact that facilitated the British in debarking on Crete and other islands, significant for their strategic importance; while they left them the margin to deploy in Thessalo- nica.
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